


Flowers Of Ardath

by PipBoi3000



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop & Tattoo Parlor, Anyone else reading this is just an added bonus, I went there and did that, M/M, Yes I know, but it's for my best friend
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:28:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23888965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PipBoi3000/pseuds/PipBoi3000
Summary: The apocalypse would take a toll on the absolute best of them. Sometimes you just need to slow down and open a flower shop. It's best to meet your neighbours when you do.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	Flowers Of Ardath

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not usually one for flower shop AU's but it was mentioned FAR too off-handedly by a certain individual who I will, unfortunately for them, do next to anything for.

It was funny, the way the world worked; How patterns would appear out of the blue, twisting around one another with a kind of deep-set cosmic purpose whether they knew it or not. An example of this would be a patch of grass that grows taller than the blades around it because it has just the right amount of sun. Or a bakery that burns all its bread because the owner (stupid man) built the thing on an indian burial ground. There was of course, no mystery to either of these. Anyone with their face to the warmth of the world is going to thrive and anyone who decides to bake sourdough on top of the restless bones of a wronged chieftain, is probably going to singe his dough.  
This is what Crowley told himself as he peered out between the blinds for what must have been the sixth or seventh time that day. But it didn’t make anything any clearer; Why an upper-class block in Southern Oxford had suddenly…

There goes another one! A burly, bald headed man smothered top to tailbone in tattoos suddenly appeared just beyond the safety of the planter box. Crowley found himself ducking, involuntarily. Craning his neck he looked for a second time, squinting at the broad smile. The man looked absolutely wrapped, whistling what Crowley was stunned to recognise as ‘Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head’ as he swung on his heel and disappeared around a corner. It had been going on for almost two weeks now, ink splattered bikers that looked as though they could mow every lawn within a five kilometre radius with the sheer amount of testosterone they emminated, had practically skipped past Crowley’s front door either humming, whistling or, in one particularly jarring occurrence, yodelling. 

He was at an absolute loss. As the day wore on and the hours slipped by, he tried to distract himself with this and that, trimming stems, changing water, curling ribbons and so on. He had owned the shop for almost three years now and he was a proud owner to say the least. The florists was an unassuming little building, perched between two much larger than itself. The shopfront was painted in a rich, deep green and spired letters spelled out the words “Ardath’s Flowers” proud and pointed above the front door. Flowers and vases glittered in the sunlight of the store, seeming to light it from the inside out. 

He had bought the shop from a woman named Eden O'Flaherty after the ad’s tiny piece of real estate on the back page of his paper had caught his eye. Something about living in what was once, quite by accident a garden of Eden, bought Crowley a chuckle, and those were hard to come by. Most days were a peaceful existence, lazing from crisp mornings into golden afternoons with only a few regular customers and occasionally a daring romantic, come to traverse the bouquets. 

Crowley was knocked out of his borderline nostalgia by a loud and hearty rendition of ‘Oh Danny Boy’ being belted from the street outside. Rather than petering off like it usually did however, the song continued louder than ever, sharing a brief duet with the bell above the door.  
“Afternoon there! And a lovely one it is, too!” The man spoke with a heavy Welsh accent, touching his brow in Crowley’s direction. He was even bigger than the last one, his face hugged deep into a greying, shaggy beard. Crowley could only nod and try to look casual. The man wandered around the shop a while, inspecting flowers and beaming, making approving noises at anything that seemed to pique his interest.  
“Would there be anything I can help you with today?” Crowley asked, trying to keep his voice as flat as possible. The man shook his beard and probably his head, too but it was hard to tell.  
“Nayer. Not today! Had all the help I needed just a couple doors down. Just thought I’d pop in and...Y’know. Smell the daisies, like.”  
The man suddenly leaned in close, looking over his shoulder and raising an eyebrow. “ Tell you what though” He said in what Crowley presumed the man considered a hushed tone.  
”if you ever need a change in your life I can more than vouch for the fellow I’ve just some from.”  
“Oh? Is that right..?”  
Crowley was suddenly and absolutely riveted. This was it, the answer to all the questions. Was it a cult? An organised crime ring? Good god, was it an orgy? They hadn’t done those right since Sodom and Gomorrah…  
The man rolled up his sleeve to reveal an angry patch of red in which the words ‘Though I walk through the valley in the shadow of death, I fear no evil’ were inked. Even as Crowley looked at it, the swelling shifted and the red leant more towards a slightly embarrassed pink. It was a phrase that had pin-balled around for a few hundred years now and the sort of thing that humans liked to get on bumper stickers but even so, Crowley felt a lump in his throat. He stared hard at the tattoo that the man was more than willing to keep displaying. He looked at the elegant, perfect slant of the letters, he looked at the way the ink settled softly in the skin without even a touch of pink now let alone any swelling. He looked at the wide, cheerful grin on the man’s face and the tears that brimmed in his eyes, threatening to spill over.

“I’m telling you man, I feel enlightened.”

Crowley didn’t even hear him, he was already down the front steps, door locking with a click behind him. He didn’t care that he had just trapped a weeping biker in his store and he doubted the biker felt any differently. Crowley headed blindly down the street to where the sign confirmed what the lump in his throat had suspected. Or perhaps hoped.

‘The Good News Tattoo Shoppe’

Of course ‘shop’ was spelt like that. For a moment, Crowley just stood there. He was slightly out of breath for only having walked, albeit rather quickly, four doors down and his heart pounded insistently. But that didn’t matter now. Because through the pristine glass of the pristine store on this cold, autumn day. He could see him. The world seemed to rush in his ears and the pavement didn’t feel quite solid enough under his feet. In that moment Crowley could only watch, his feet refusing to move, seeming to scream at him that he had rushed a million moments, darn it all. For this one, he could pause. So he did. He watched as Aziraphale adjusted the heavy design books to look carelessly arranged, then shake his head and put them gently in spine height order, his lips tracing out the words to ‘Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head’. He watched as he pushed in chairs and as he ran through a sheet that Crowley could only presume to be an unforgivingly tight schedule. He watched as Aziraphale’s gaze drifted to the street outside and then, as if in slow motion, to him. 

Sometimes it feels as if the world will only wait so long. Where you need an hour, you are given a second. Where you need a week, you’re given a day. And sometimes even six thousand years doesn’t feel like enough time to catch your breath.


End file.
